Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Milwaukee Hosting the 2024 RNC

Frederica Freyberg:
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson welcomed tens of thousands of Republican faithful to his Democratic city. Did it pay off? He joins us now. And mayor, thanks very much for being here.

Cavalier Johnson:
Happy to see you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So we reported on the economic impact of the convention. Did it meet your expectations?

Cavalier Johnson:
Well, as I’ve mentioned, we’re not, you know, in control of economic projections for the convention. What I can tell you is that there were a lot of people, tens of thousands that came to Milwaukee, that stayed at our hotels, that ventured into restaurants, that spent money with local vendors and left a significant amount of money here in our economy. We’ll have to go back and check in with Visit Milwaukee and those other folks to see exactly what the economic impact was. I anticipate that it was pretty hefty though.

Frederica Freyberg:
After Donald Trump called Milwaukee a “horrible city,” do you think that had any influence on convention goers?

Cavalier Johnson:
On the convention goers, no. I mean, these are folks that were coming from, you know, far across the country. I don’t know if they paid attention to his comments, like we paid attention to them here. That’s, you know, unfortunately because Donald Trump, Mr. Trump unfortunately has a history of saying these wild, outlandish things. And so people tend to not really pay them much attention, although they should because sometimes some of the things that he says can have a detrimental impact on individuals’ rights, on the direction of the country, and so forth. So things can be outlandish, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important for us to listen to. We certainly listened when he said that Milwaukee was a “horrible city.”

Frederica Freyberg:
So following the rally attack, kind of going back specific to the convention itself, following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, how tense were security considerations in your city now that it’s wound up and maybe we can talk about it a little more?

Cavalier Johnson:
Well, first let me just say that, that attempt, that assassination attempt on Mr. Trump was terrible. That was actually horrible. That should never happen. That is just — there’s no place for that sort of action in our politics at all whatsoever. And after it happened, I did have the opportunity to wish Mr. Trump very well in his recovery, had the chance to speak to him and told him the same thing. So, in terms of individuals being here in Milwaukee, and having the chance to follow up after that incident with security here, we took the opportunity to make sure that the city was safe. And we had an NSSE. That was a designation here. It’s a National Special Security Event in Milwaukee. That’s the highest designation you could possibly get for an event of this magnitude. So by definition, it was a secure event than what the rally was that Mr. Trump held last week Saturday.

Frederica Freyberg:
So there were definitely concerns though and criticisms of so many out of state police officers in the city and on the streets, including those from Ohio, who as you know, shot and killed a man outside the perimeter. What is your response to that shooting?

Cavalier Johnson:
Well, as it relates to the number of officers who were here from out of state, I mean, look, Milwaukee won the Democratic National Convention in 2020. And now, unfortunately, it didn’t pan out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But, had it actually taken place the way that we envisioned, you would have seen the same sort of security footprint with officers coming in from outside the state of Wisconsin, and in from across the country. In terms of the officers from the outside, Milwaukee Police would not have been able to make sure the convention was secure all by themselves and still provide policing services to the balance of the city. So there was a need to bring in officers from the outside. This was a collaboration not just with Milwaukee Police, but with Secret Service and law enforcement agencies from across the country. And I’m thankful for their assistance. It was tragic that, that there was an incident that happened where a man was killed, outside of the security perimeter. The officers from Columbus, Ohio, they were there not in a patrolling, front facing mode. They were actually doing a briefing, a debrief, and one of the officers happened to notice that there was an altercation taking place, noticed that one of the individuals had a knife. Later on, we would find that there were two knives. Officers approached the individual, made numerous commands to drop the weapons, to drop the weapons. That didn’t happen. Instead, the individual lunged in a threatening manner at an unarmed man, and, you know, and possibly could have caused him serious bodily harm or death. And the officers took action. And I’m saddened that life was lost there but I’m also thinking about the individual who possibly could have lost his life. And what’s more is that when I talked to officers, including officers at the local level here, I’m told that any officer in that situation would have taken the exact same action in order to make sure they preserved the life of the unarmed person who was being attacked.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, we leave it there. Mayor Cavalier Johnson, thanks very much.

Cavalier Johnson:
Thank you.